Since the end of formal apartheid, former council housing schemes for racially designated groups are being remodelled and reconfigured. These communities, still home to the poor, are burdened by their past and challenged by their present circumstances. This article attempts to locate discourses on transition and identity in the context of Jan Hofmeyr, a former ‘poor white’ council housing scheme in Johannesburg. Drawing on the methods of life histories, documentary review and semi-structured in-depth interviews, it asks how, against the background of the formal end to apartheid and the liberalization of the South African economy, and inserted into the changing landscape of the post-colonial city, do residents make and understand their lives in material and symbolic ways. The article approaches notions of identity within the frame of discourse, practice and performance.
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